Of My Moleskine Notebook

When my mother says “We’re going to Paris!” it means ‘We’re going to France!”.

So when I tell my friends my goodbyes, I’ll be back in two-weeks’, just keep messaging my phone and I plunge myself into confused guilt; I have an image of speaking pidgin Français for a good two weeks while we drive around its many regions in the summer sunshine while I contemplate my writing and immersing myself in deep thought… Or so I thought.

Apparently, “We’re going to drive around France!” means “We’re going to drive all over just one French region, the whole of Luxembourg, certain parts of Germany and Belgium!”, and hastily, “Oh, and we’ll have a few days in Paris.”

So, instead of my many hours of being deep in thought through the French countryside with the last of the summer sunshine on my face; I have instead many loud conversational trysts and arguments with the GPS system on our rented car, with my mother about the GPS system and the logistics of “TURN RIGHT IN 250YARDS” and with my dad about why didn’t he bring the umbrella ; with torrential drizzle/rain and overcast skies. Global warming baby, it’s screwing up everything.

And apparently, when French hotels say “ALL OUR HOTELS HAVE WI-FI ACCESS!” and while some of them in the same chain may offer free wi-fi; it is not a guarantee that the wi-fi is free or that it works. I am currently writing this in Spa, Belgium; and they’ve got free, working, accessible wi-fi… That only works in public places such as the lobby!

So Azlan, thanks for your nice messages. Cute boys? The last time I could say I saw an appealing member of the opposite sex was in Luxembourg – where I unfortunately did not bump into a ghost or living specimen of Brian Molko (though I could swear the guy sitting in front of me in the Cafe was so similar in his gestures, he could’ve been the guy’s dad)- where there is a plethora of skinny jean-wearing, gig-going, multi-language-speaking youth.

No complaints though, I’m having a good time but feeling guilty as fuck because I’m not doing any work, not doing any thinking, not doing any writing, not doing any reading, not chasing any deadlines (school ed board, competitions ), not washing my underwear (I must’ve brought like my whole cupboard of undies) and so on so forth.

I spend my idle hours in the car – in between being pissed at the GPS/signage system or reading the map/brochure – thinking about Hitler, Kevin Rose, Shia la Boeuf, Brian Molko, and Shia La Beouf.

And as it starts raining heavier again, and the weather forecast for the foreseeable future gets even more overcast, I think of the boy in blue; the only one that ever paid interest in me through our awkward multi-language conversations. He’s probably basking in the midday sun at the moment, painting the steps white or carrying luggage up and down the steep corners of the Caldera; skin a shade darker than I last saw him in June, pink from the mid-summer heat.

And then I think, fuck it lah, I’ll just think about random androgynous rockstars that I’ll never meet and would never actually fall in love with to be on the safe side while this GPS system knocks itself out and my pre-menstrual overloaded estrogen self (aka horny teenager-mood) passes.

Glasnost and perestroiska. Ja.

It’s the month of August and  as the months leading up to Merdeka are inching nearer and nearer, advertisements and random and somewhat superficial acts of patriotism spring up front back and centre; all enveloping us in its coercion to show even more random acts of nationalistic pride.

Not to be a prude or anything; but to me some of these advertisements are downright silly. And absurd.

Now, don’t get me wrong, before you pull me from my laptop and lock me up in ISA, this isn’t a far left-wing post; I love my country dearly, I’m not claiming any sedition to any politician, and no, I’m not exactly in the mood for poking a stick at Rais Yatim. I’m just saying that the adverts on radio have been absolute shit of late.

Take Rudy and JJ’s 50 Things You Don’t Know About Malaysia or something of that title. Yes, I know, it’s supposed to be funny, and it’s not supposed to be corny or tearsheding, and should appeal to hitz.fm’s target audience who they identify to be shallow and can’t-give-a-shit teenagers. I’m fine with that. But really, its so nonsensical, it’s embarrassing.

Then, I turn the knob to Fly FM. Two DJs going in flossy glossy happy scripted and lazily animated drawls on how “WE SHOULD PUT FLAGS ON OUR CARS!”.

Ohmigod! Flags! Fantastic! That’s the answer we’ve all been looking for! For racial integration, freedom of speech, awareness of rights, a better education system and socio-economic stability! Bloody hell! How FANTASTIC!

And the thing is, nobody actually gives a shit.

Seriously.

Fine, there’s theCICAK,  theres this guy, this blog, John Lee MK, and this guy, Malaysiakini and some other notable people in the Malaysian blogosphere who tire their intellect out shouting for something or another.

On the whole, people (or to be more precise, youths) have a lukewarm attitude to our independence or state; and their most provocative statement about the current affairs of the country is that they wish that it was “more like Singapore”.

Though I could probably say I understand why. It’s tiring being passionate about something you don’t have much power over. It’s because you’ve got too much work trying to break the system than bother about how it works or who works the screws; because it’s not your burden to bear, or at least, you might think. Not yet.

Makes me ask myself, What am I doing? What am I doing, with my disaparate anger and uninitiated passion; my whining and rambling, my un-proactive stance, my ideas and ideals that I voice to random people and heated posts which I do not spread further. My dismissal of STAR’s youth blog or certain theCICAK posts and disinterest in THINK.com.my. My hot-hot-chicken-shit social left-wing ideals, my incomplete rebellion and mute retaliation.

I’m not doing anything. And its disappointing that it took me two hours of writing and deleting in this box to admit that.